Plan your Route 66 road trip

Route 66 is the old highway from Chicago to Santa Monica: about 2,448 miles across Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. It opened in 1926 and was retired from the U.S. highway system in 1985, but most of it survives as old alignments beside the interstates, lined with neon motels, diners, gas stations, ghost towns and roadside giants.

Most drivers give the whole road about two weeks at around 175 miles a day, and go between April and June or in September and October, when the desert is mild. Chicago is the traditional start, but you can join anywhere and drive any stretch in either direction. Many of the best sights, from Cadillac Ranch to the Gemini Giant, are free to see.

This guide maps 849 stops in 47 towns. Browse them on the interactive Route 66 map, read a state guide such as Illinois, Oklahoma or Arizona, or let the trip planner turn any stretch into a day-by-day plan with Google Maps links.

Route 66 Trip Guide is a free, independent guide to driving Route 66: no accounts, no sign-up, and nobody pays to be listed. The 849 stops come from Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, every photo is credited to its author on Wikimedia Commons, and the descriptions are written for this site from those facts.

Opening hours change faster than our sources, so check with a place before a long detour, and tell us when something is off: about this site and how to reach us.